All posts tagged in Simulation
Jul 1, 2019
LEGO has been at the forefront of wholesome games for decades. Now, they have joined forces with mobile producer and developer Nimblebit LLC to create LEGO Tower. We can’t wait to dive into this virtual brick building experience!
About the Game:
LEGO Tower is very similar to Nimblebit’s Tiny Tower. Your main objective is to build the biggest and best tower you can. Each floor fits into a different category. These range from residential apartment floors to restaurants, gyms, and more.
Instead of Tiny Tower’s “bitizens”, you have LEGO minifigures. Your minifigures live and work in your creation. You can customize the appearance of your minifigure residents and assign them jobs.
The biggest difference seems to be the graphics. Instead of Nimblebit’s signature pixels, the graphics look like LEGO pieces. What is really neat about this is the potential customization. In Tiny Tower you had a forever growing gray skyscraper with an orange crane on the top. In LEGO Tower your tower can be green with a dinosaur on top or red, mimicking LEGO’s NINJAGO collection.
Like Tiny Tower, you can visit your friends’ towers. It seems friendship is important to the game, as you have the ability to gift friends materials to help them build.
There seems to be a focus on collection in LEGO Tower. You can supposedly collect “hundreds of unique minifigure pieces.” There are also hidden characters you can find, along with unlocking vehicles.
Watch the trailer:
LEGO Tower is out today for Android and iOS! Get it for free on the Google Play Store or the Apple Store.
Want more mobile games? Check out the myPotatoGames approved Forgotton Anne. Like running virtual businesses? Try The Sushi Spinnery and Little Dragons Cafe. We also suggest keeping an eye out for Creature Resort.
- May 30, 2019
Planet Zoo is currently being developed by Frontier Developments. They probably need no introduction as they also are the ones behind Planet Coaster and Zoo Tycoon. The game is a management and simulation game about creating your very own zoo. The game is set to release sometime in the Fall of 2019 for PC. You can view the announcement trailer and some information about the game with us here.
Another Planet Zoo Developer Journal has been posted, where Programmer Megan Brown and Senior Designer David Bamber discuss animal behaviours. See below for the major details about their developer post and how you can better manage your zoo.
From left to right: Programmer Megan Brown and Senior Designer David Bamber Habitats and Socializing
There needs to be the correct types of terrain and environments for the animals. There also needs to be somewhere where they can take shelter if they dislike being out in certain weather conditions. Meaning, weather can impact your zoo and your animals’ welfare. For example, rain and snow will make a habitat colder which may have a positive or negative consequence on your animals. Timber Wolves especially would love a snow drift or two.
Of course we all know that keeping your animals happy is a very important part of being a good zookeeper. The animals require a habitat well suited to their needs and desires as well as ongoing care and attention. Habitats need to be spacious enough for the number of animals they contain. That might be a few, depending on the species, because some animals need to socialize more than others. Plain Zebras for that matter will get unhappy very quickly if it finds itself alone.
Shelters and Privacy
Shelters are vital because the animals need a space where they can hide when they are stressed. They can become stressed due to weather conditions or if too many guests are peering in at them. Animals need some peace and some privacy too! Some animals are shy so avoid making a path all around the enclosure. The developers suggest to put windows in the walls at strategic points or a one-way glass instead. Keep an eye on your animals’ behaviour when it seems that they are always hiding. Another example of behaviour is when they lie down in a manner that shows that they are sick.
Food Quality and Other Necessities
You’ll also need to take care of food, water, enrichment items, and the habitat cleanliness. Therefore, you’ll need to make sure you have plenty of zookeepers. Something you may find new is what the developers had to say about food: Food quality is another thing you’ll want to take into account, as it improves the nutritional welfare of your animals. You can research better quality foods for each species, but this will carry an increased cost, so it’s up to you to decide if it’s worth it. Higher welfare animals have the potential to live longer, raise young more successfully, and be more appealing to guests.
Speaking of cleanliness, we felt the need to share the following quote from David, the Senior Designer: I don’t think we can talk about animal behaviour without talking about dung… it’s always a fun aspect to work on (my YouTube recommendations list is now very specific)! We’ve tried to pay special attention to the size, shape, number of ‘boli’ in a pile, and frequency compared to eating rates. We wanted to make sure this vital aspect of zookeeper work is properly represented, and some animals will need extra keepers simply to keep up with the volume of dung (I’m looking at you Elephants!). We know from our conversations with keepers that this less glamourous side of animal care is time consuming, but is absolutely vital to keeping them fit and healthy. By the way, every piece of dung is a physics object that rolls downhill!
Mating System
The mating system compared to Zoo Tycoon will be a little more detailed this time around. Specifically, who will mate with whom. In real life animals have hugely varied mating habits. This ranges from monogamy to polygamy and to seemingly no mating rules at all! This is a more realistic approach to real-life wildlife. To give some examples: with West African Lions, only the Alpha male will be allowed to mate with the females in his pride. Reticulated Giraffes however will mate with any member of the opposite sex.
You can even build habitats for pairs and juveniles, ‘bachelor’ groups of young males, or related family groups. Each species has a range of group sizes and gender mixes it is happy with. Therefore, dig into the Zoopedia to research and plan your populations. The developers go on to say: Maintaining a diverse gene pool is very important, especially if you want your population to remain healthy. Inbreeding between closely related animals will lead to reduced fertility rates and increased chances of catching nasty diseases, so to maintain a healthy group, you will need to make sure mating does not occur between related animals and may need to periodically introduce new individuals to maintain diversity.
Frontier Developments also mention the following: Another example of this is how West African Lions interact with each other as a group. If you put more than one adult male in with an adult female then those animals are going to fight for dominance, and the winner of that fight will become the Alpha of the lions in that habitat. This grants him the sole rights to mating with the females and producing offspring, so if you want specific creatures to breed you’ll need to keep this in mind.
More Annoucments
The developers have been posting different animals that they are confirming will be in the game via Twitter. Each week we get a new reveal along with #ZoopediaFacts about them. The most recent animal is this little cutie-pie below. In one of their Twitch videos, they mention that different species of animals, such as tortoises, will change depending on the island they are on.
Planet Zoo will be appearing at E3’s PC Gaming Show on June 10th, 2019 where they’ll be on stage to reveal the first gameplay trailer for Planet Zoo! We’ll finally get to see how enclosures are constructed and the movements of some animals! Stay tuned with us at myPotatoGames as we learn more about this game!
- May 16, 2019
Moving Out is created by SMG Studio in Australia (and in collaboration with Devm Games in Stockholm), an indie game development studio that won awards for their games such as Death Squared. This hilarious action, puzzle, and physics-based moving simulator game is a nice mesh of Frogger and Overcooked! I mean who doesn’t want to become a F.A.R.T (certified Furniture Arrangement & Relocation Technician)? For now, you can wishlist the game on Steam, which has a release date window of 2019.
Complete the 50+ levels that will let you get into all sorts of shenanigans. For example, unloading cargo off moving planes, smuggling giraffes out of the zoo, and transporting goods to strange locales like haunted houses and outer space. Furthermore, customers appreciate prompt delivery so you can break down the walls, throw things, and use technology like portals and ray guns!
Local Co-op and Multiplayer
Be an independent contractor or team up with a friend! Moving Out features both local and online play across its arcade, story, and versus modes. Each level also adjusts the experience dynamically to account for the number of players on screen, thereby welcoming Smooth Move employees of all ages and skill levels. Moreover, with party mode you’ll be able to compete for the highest score locally or against the community.
Character Customization
As you can see in SMG Studio’s latest Tweet, you can change your avatar’s hair and skin color. You can be blue, purple, or green; anything goes in this quirky game!
Check out their website here if you want to sign up and follow them for more information. For another wacky and cooperative game, check out our article about Knights and Bikes. If relocating and unpacking is your thing, check out Unpacking.
- Apr 11, 2019
Staxel, a farming and building simulation game developed by an indie studio called Studio Plukit, has just been fully released today (April 11th, 2019) on Steam and Humble Bundle. If you’re a fan of Minecraft, you’ll definitely enjoy these pixelated blocked-shaped graphics! You can check out our earlier coverage of the preview of the game here. Now, let’s look at what has changed since the completion of the game.
Magic Crafting
A new Magic Crafting System has been added to upgrade your tools and help you with the progressing of certain quests. Watch out for Star Bits, an important new crafting item, that will be falling from the night sky!
New Pets, New Friends
You can now speak to Mayor Maximilian to find out if any new villagers are waiting to move into town. You can befriend those villagers through daily chat, by giving them gifts, and by completing quests for them. Become best friends with the villagers and you can choose to have them move in on the farm and become your roommate! Speaking of friends, you can send mail and in-game currency to people online in multiplayer mode.
You’ll now be able to get this new dog at random as your starter pet at the beginning of the game, or at random by buying a dog house. Rabbits, a wholly new added species, are found at the pet store, or via a village amenity you’ll unlock by befriending a certain animal-loving villager.
Museum
As you find ancient relics and paintings, you can display your collections in the all-new Museum. This museum can be unlocked via a quest with a particular blue villager. The Museum is yours to build and fill with wonderful art!
The Museum Festivals, Calendar Extension, and New Lands
Festivals are celebrated throughout the in-game year of Staxel. From hunting down rogue prank-playing fairies, to exploring vast new caverns full of loot, there’s a lot more to do besides farming in Staxel!
Throughout the game you’ll find new lands to visit, such as crystal caverns and floating mushrooms in the sky. Check out the new Portal Festival for these new worlds to explore.
Staxel in-game days are now longer so you can have more time to accomplish all of this adventuring! Each calendar season is now 30 days, instead of 16, to give you more time to experience the best that each season has to offer. Make sure to check your calendar to review the current season’s events.
The crystal cavern Arcade
You need to befriend a certain game-loving villager so you can take part in some fun and challenging minigames in the Arcade. Enter a digital world and gather the 4 magic items of the Demon King’s maze as you try to escape. The developer assures us that there will be a lot of jumping and platforming involved.
Inside one of the challenges of the Arcade. As for other updates, some tools, fishing, and the recipe book have been tweaked, special merchants added, status buffs and debuffs, a picture-taking mode, among other minor changes. Follow the developers blog for more information! For more farming games, check out our latest news on Ooblets here.
- Apr 10, 2019
Éloïse Laroche, the sole developer behind this adorable title, has recently announced that she will be releasing her game on Steam Early Access this August, and can already be added to your wishlist. To get caught up with Alchemy Story, read our article about it here. Now let’s dive in to her Devlog post for the month of March 2019.
Day & Night Cycle
A welcome addition to the game is that of the transition from day to night. There are now wonderfully detailed animations of the sun in the morning sky and the stars at night.
The Fairykeeper
Jasmine Lightwing has a relationship with the fairies and will help us with gaining their trust as well! This means new areas to explore.
Forest & Lumber
You now have the ability to cut down trees and to collect the lumber. This and other upcoming features of things you will be able to do in the forest are as follows:
- Axe upgrades. These will allow you to cut down trees faster and lose less energy.
- Energy potions. You’ll be able to regain your energy without leaving the forest.
- Special levels. You’ll encounter unique forest levels.
- Hot air balloon. This will allow you to fast travel to a specific level.
The Garden
Another exciting update is that of the new garden features. Walk over to your crops and see their names as well as how many days are left until they are ready to harvest. This will make farming so much easier! Charlotte will have garden bed expansions for sale in her shop.
Moreover, some other character animations for Arabella and technical updates have been added such as the ability to zoom in and out with the camera. You can check out the details of the Devlog on the Patreon page here. If Alchemy Story piques your interest, stay tuned on our website for an upcoming review of the game!
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Neither could we. So we reached out to see if we could get our hands on a few copies for fans (and maybe one for us)! Thanks to the generosity of Éloïse Laroche, we now three copies to share with our followers, and we couldn’t be happier to do so!
For a chance to claim a code for yourself, simply comment on this post that you would like to join, and earn 25 Tater-tots (basically just perusing www.mypotatogames.com content) between now and this coming Monday the 15th! For a chance to win a code for you and a friend, tag a friend in the comment section (on either the Facebook post or Twitter post) that you think would love this game!
All participants must comment in the section below before tagging a friend. Two separate winners will be chosen for the three codes. The codes we have are only for PC. The winners will be chosen at random sometime shortly after the giveaway ends! We thank all of you for your continued support of our site, and for supporting the games we love to talk about!
- Apr 5, 2019
EGX Rezzed 2019 is a gaming event in London taking place at the Tobacco Dock Thursday, April 4th, 2019 to Saturday, April 6th, 2019 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm every day. There’s still time to check it out if you live in the area!
About EGX Rezzed 2019
The event will consist of playable pre-release games on both PC and consoles (with a strong focus on indie titles), developer sessions by well known game designers and the opportunity to chat with developers on the show floor.
Xbox has just announced that their booth will have 30 indie games to play during the entirety of the show! If you can’t make it to this event, we here at myPotatoGames have highlighted a couple of games below that stood out to us that you may be interested in as well.
Atomicrops
Atomicrops is an action rogue-like farming simulator, developed by Danny Wynne, Toby Dixon, and Joonas Turner, and published by Raw Fury. It has a release window for 2019 on PC and consoles.
Features
- Grow mutant crops and reap a bountiful harvest to sustain humanity… and make a huge profit.
- Woo and marry a kindred spirit from the local town to fight and farm alongside you.
- Fight bizarre post-nuclear pests starving for a piece of your crops at night. Hunt and forage in dangerous surrounding biomes for seeds and loot during the day. Turn your enemies into fertilizer to increase your crops quality.
- Explore the far reaches of the biomes to find useful relics of farms long past. Discover rusty farm equipment, antique gardening tools, and tomes of how-to garden guides to increase your farming power. Spend your money in town to upgrade your gun and abilities. Permanently upgrade your farm house for bonuses that persist across playthroughs.
- Recruit an entourage of pig pals, chicken chums and cow colleagues to automate farming tasks. Cultivating atomicrops is a tough job, you’ll need all the help you can get.
Etherborn
Etherborn is a relaxing environmental puzzle and platformer built on exploring and understanding gravity-shifting structures, developed by Altered Matter. The game will be releasing in spring of 2019 for PC (Steam and Humble Bundle Store), Switch, PS4, and Xbox One.
Features
- Gravity-shifting platforming and exploration.
- Navigation puzzles based on your unique sense of gravity.
- Surreal levels in an atmosphere inspired by artists of the 20th-21st centuries.
- Dynamic and captivating original soundtrack tailored to each level.
Regarding other gaming events across the world, we’ll have you covered for the PAX East 2019 with highlights of the Animal Crossing panel coming here soon.
- Mar 31, 2019
Snacko is a farming simulation game developed by an indie studio called bluecurse, based in Vancover, BC, Canada. The founders, husband and wife Jordan and Erisa, wanted to create a world “where cats rule the land” and so the project began in 2018. Snacko is expected to release sometime in the year 2021 for PC and Nintendo Switch.
We here at myPotatoGames obviously can’t get enough of cat games so the game Snacko, where you play as cat, is the purr-fect game to talk about! Who doesn’t love those furry, squishy, soft, adorable balls of fluff! On the Island of Snacko, where a terrible event happened, corrupting the native creatures and causing the inhabitants to leave, it is up to you to find the source of the evil and bring the land back to life.
Features
- Classic farming sim gameplay: farm, fish, cook, and craft!
- Customize your farmland: craft different types of fences, storage units, and more. Use these objects to spruce up your plot of land.
- Customize your town: choose from a variety of exterior styles for houses, decorate with different items your villagers could interact with.
- Recruit a variety of villagers: send out letters to seek help in rebuilding the island. Based on what you write, different types of animals will reply. Who will you choose to move in?
- Explore and unlock new areas: recruiting different types of villagers will unlock new areas to explore. Each area has their own unique resources, monsters, and mysteries to solve.
- Play your way: experience a cute and cozy island with a simple story. It’s up to you to fill in the details! What’s your ideal island?
One of the newest features that was recently announced is the use of many more tools, starting with sprinklers. For more on information on what the developers are currently working on, go to their website here. For our latest news on a similar farming game, Stardew Valley, go here.
Sprinklers will help to speed up your farming! - Mar 20, 2019
Two Point Hospital is a quirky hospital sim builder developed by Two Point Studios and published by SEGA. For those of you who recall playing EA’s Theme Hospital back in the late 90’s, Two Point Hospital will have you feeling nostalgia as the two games are very similar with Two Point Hospital feeling just like an updated version.
Story & Content:
Two Point Hospital lacks a story line but that doesn’t mean it lacks personality. Every patient that comes into your hospital will have a quirky disease that needs to be taken care of by an even wackier medical contraption.
Sound & Music:
While you are treating your patients, there are occasional announcements over the intercom and a radio station with a funny DJ. These little touches along with a very fitting cartoon art style, work well together to bring out the personality of Two Point Hospital and help you not miss a story line.
Gameplay:
The gameplay is quite simple and in-line with the usual sim builder games. Within 15 levels you build various rooms, hire staff to run them and once you have everything you need, the game will run itself while you watch. There are a few other options like making your hospital look visually appealing, making sure your patients don’t get bored, putting sanitation centers to insure the cleanliness of the hospital, and training your staff, but these aspects are also very limited. The simplicity of this game-play led for a very relaxing afternoon but I felt like the game needed more context to keep me playing it.
Final Thoughts:
The game runs for $34.99 on Steam and with the amount of content it has now, this price seems to be quite steep and (to those not accustomed to Tycoon games) might not be worth it. However, when this game can be found on sale, purchasing it would be recommended if you are looking for a funny and relaxing sim builder.
